When Bill Ryder-Jones began work on his sixth album, Iechyd Da, he set himself two goals. The first was to make it sound like the last three years of his life, a kind of aural snapshot where personal hardships – heartbreak, his mental health issues, financial struggle – were given a more hopeful bent when paired with the imagined sound of his home surroundings in West Kirby, Merseyside: the long strolls he’d take on the seafront; the short, regular walk through the park from his house to his own studio.
The second – the most important one – was to write an album that at least equalled his sparse 2013 LP, A Bad Wind Blows In My Heart, an endeavour which he admits had become an “obsession”. That was Ryder-Jones’ second solo record after leaving The Coral in 2008, uneasy with the demands of being the guitarist in a popular band. He has arguably released two excellent albums since – 2016’s West Kirby County Primary and 2018’s Yawn (with its 2019 acoustic sister album, Yawny Yawn) – but after the widescreen cinematics of largely instrumental debut If…, it represents the collection that marked him out as a songwriting talent in his own right, establishing what would become his style: an open lyricist channelling naturalistic, conversational sketches into muted, warm songs, all delivered with a restrained intimacy.
It doesn’t take long living with Iechyd Da to realise he has succeeded with both aims. It is a truly wonderful record, one that embellishes Ryder-Jones’ writing in ways both grand and unusual, without sacrificing any of the closeness – his lyrics remain raw and direct – or melodic knack. Wide-eyed in scope and tender in execution, it is clear that Ryder-Jones’ recent work as producer – most notably on fellow Merseysider Michael Head’s last album, Dear Scott – has had an invigorating effect.
Using strings and complex arrangements, samples and a child’s choir, it variously recalls mid-period Spiritualized and Mercury Rev at their most opulent, with echoes of Richard Swift and the ever-present influence of Gruff Rhys (whose approval Ryder-Jones sought for the use of the album’s Welsh language title). You’ll even hear the old master himself: as well as some Shack-like traits, especially on the chorus of Christinha, Head narrates passages of Ulysses over woozy interlude …And the Sea..
The album starts with its most ambitious track. I Know That It’s Like This (Baby) samples Gal Costa’s 1969 track Baby, a song that bonded the early flourishes of Ryder-Jones’ last relationship. But here, he cleverly uses a truism – that songs remind us of specific times, people and places – as the foundation to bookend love’s demise via the sample’s shimmering, distant vocal hook. It’s a stunning, beautiful opening.
Lead single This Can’t Go On is more indicative. This time sampling a 1978 disco hit (Every Little Beat of My Heart by Flashlight), it’s a soaring thing of wonder, the song’s uplift belying the heart-on-sleeve lyric about escaping the throes of depression. You hear that juxtaposition throughout: see the Doves-like anthemic melancholy of Nothing To Be Done, and It’s Today Again, a child choir-assisted celestial musing on anxiety.
The peak Spiritualized balladry of We Don’t Need Them is one of many delightful uses of local Merseyside dialect: “is right”, “yous” (more than one person); elsewhere also “From Ant’s to ours to Arrowe Park”, and “Carol’s sound”. Ryder-Jones’ casual use of language, dropping characters into his songs as if we know them, make his work feel personal and familiar.
There are uncomfortable confessions: A Bad Wind Blows In My Heart Pt3 – one of many call backs to that album – starts with sombre piano and Ryder-Jones questioning an ex for getting back in touch, but is soon pulling at the heart. “Oh, how I loved you” he implores over and over as the song picks up into a gallop.
Before the short, gentle Nos Da brings the album to a close, Thankfully For Anthony makes for the album’s final gut punch. A slow, beautiful meditation on the importance of friendship, Ryder-Jones defiantly concludes, “I chose love”. “I thought that was pretty good?” he is caught saying off-mic at the end. It’s much better than that: Iechyd Da is his masterpiece, start to finish.
By Shaun Curran
Bill-Ryder Jones on seeking Gruff Rhys’ approval, capturing the sounds of his life and more…
It seems like your production work with Michael Head helped shape the record…
With Mick’s record, it was largely left to myself to write the strings and orchestral instrumentation and dictate how big and small the arrangements were. I guess it gave me the confidence to realise that, actually, you can record a good string sound with only a couple of players. In fact, it’s probably nicer. It got me thinking I want to do something a bit more ambitious.
You said you wanted the album to “sound like where I’m from”. What did you mean?
I meant I want it to sound like my life in that period. I wasn’t necessarily trying to be North-western. Obviously, it’s inescapable. I think it was more I wanted to sound like the last three years of my life, like walking down the streets here. So it does feel very much to me like it sounds like how West Kirby looks in my mind.
That’s resulted in plenty of unflinching honesty in the lyrics…
It’s sort of my schtick, isn’t it? Let’s be honest. It’s largely me just bitching about, in truth, my not-that-bad situation. I mean, I say that, but the agoraphobia has been fucking awful the last few years. And certainly the Valium dependency as a result of that has been pretty ropey. But it is strange [writing songs] being anchored to something you went through six months ago. I had to revisit some lyrics about someone I was with when I started writing. It’s like, “Am I being too nice to this person who really hurt me? Or should I be more of a prick?”
You’ve said that your recent albums have been missing hope. What do you mean?
I don’t, despite the depression, ever stay really down at the bottom for very long, as I always can find the beauty in things and people in the world. But that wasn’t translating into my music. Musically, I felt like it’d just become a little dour. Even my auntie said it. She’s 70 now and is very straight up and very northern. At Christmas dinner after I put Yawn out she said, “Oh, Bill, this last one is very dour”!
What’s with the album title?
I love the Welsh language. I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to try to learn it for about 12 years. Up until 50 years ago, my whole father’s side of the family were there. It’s a beautiful place and the phrase itself (meaning ‘good health’) is something that we started with my mates in the pub before each pint.
And you asked Gruff Rhys for permission?
Not permission, but I said, “Do you reckon I can get away with this?” He said it’s clearly coming from a good place, which it is. It was basically like making friends with the toughest kid in school. Take it up with him!
It seems like your desire to make a better record than A Bad Wind Blows In My Heart was a preoccupation?
It preoccupied me for West Kirby County Primary and Yawn but it became an obsession with this one, ha-ha. Definitely. It’s lucky I don’t have any hits. It’d send me off. If I had [The La’s] There She Goes, well, I wouldn’t even be in England now.
Do you feel like you’ve achieved that?
Yeah, I feel like this album is definitely as good. It’s certainly a sister record, almost 10 years apart. And that’s quite sweet in itself.
As told to Shaun Curran
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